One Year, Wow How Time Flies.

Yesterday was our 1 year anniversary. It just blows my mind how fast this last year has gone by. They say the first year of marriage is the hardest. Moving across the country to start a new life, was definitely a difficult time for our first year of marriage, but our relationship NEVER faltered. If anything this move has made us grow closer together and our bond has only become stronger. At first I thought that this move would be so hard on our marriage, but I believe it was best thing for our marriage and friendship. I never thought in a million years that I would have the opportunity to visit Europe, let alone actually live in Europe. I can only imagine what other exciting adventures I will get to experience with my husband. I thank God everyday for the amazing gift he gave me, by bringing Jon into my life.

God has blessed me in so many ways, with a wonderful family, wonderful friends, my health, the health of my family, etc. etc., but mostly an amazing, loving, honest, caring husband with an incredibly good soul. Marrying Jon was the best decision I have ever made. I look forward to spending the rest our lives together. For everything God has blessed me with, I am so very thankful.

"That my heart may sing praise to you and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever." Psalm 30:12

In honor of one year of marriage, I wanted to share the last year of our adventures with everyone through, that's right you guessed it, PICTURES!!! Come on you guys know me, I'm a sucker for pictures. So without further ado, here are:

The Adventures of Jon and Steph, year number ONE.

I posted them into little thumbnails so that I could cram as many pictures into one post.

You can click on the pictures to enlarge.

June 7, 2008

July 2008

August 2008

September 2008


October 2008


November 2008



December 2008


January 2009


February 2009


March 2009


April 2009


May 2009



June 2009

Our weekly weekend update:

For our anniversary, we left for a day trip on Friday for Colmar, France. It is a beautiful little town near the border of Germany and was only a three hour drive. We lucked out and had incredible weather that day and were able to walk around the town for hours seeing all of the sights. I took over 250 pictures which I will be posting tomorrow!

Saturday we returned home to rain in Germany. (Surprise, surprise.) But we weren't too upset about it because we were actually looking forward to a day like this so we can spend it watching the Sopranos. We actually finished the first season of Sopranos on Saturday, while bundled up on the couch drinking wine and eating stir fry.

Sunday was also rainy, so we ran to the grocery store and the movie rental place and rushed back home. We rented Taken.

AMAZING film guys, if you haven't seen it, please rent it. It's great!!
We actually watched it twice ;)

We also watched Ghostbusters and believe it or not, I coaxed Jon into watching The Notebook. Ya, ya I know, I've said I'm not a chick flick kinda girl, but Jon had never seen it and I thought why not watch it. Of course I cried and Jon said it really wasn't as bad as he thought it was going to be. He said he actually liked it! After watching movies all day and relaxing on the couch we called it an evening. That was our lazy weekend in a nutshell!

How was your weekend???

Being away from blogger for almost a week, I definitely have a lot of catching up to do, sorry for the lack of commenting on your blogs, but I will be back to reading and commenting today!

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!!

Hangin' in Eppstein

The day before my brother left we took them to a small town about thirty minutes away called Eppstein. (I know, I'm a little late on this post.) It is a very quaint town, definitely a town that just spells Germany. Sean and Kathleen really wanted to visit a place exactly like this, so Eppstein was my first thought. Not to mention they have a caste that is still standing located in the center of the city. (I've posted about this castle previously.) Here are some pictures of our visit. I'll apologize now for the ridiculous amount of pictures. I got a lot little out of control!

The last two days I have been busy with hair and today I've got two haircuts and a haircolor! Woohoo, business is slowly picking up. Thank goodness! Moving across country is NOT good for a self employed business! Hope you all have a fabulous Thursday!

Dessert Recipe

Hey all!! I found a great new recipe for a somewhat healthy dessert that I knew I had to share! Here's is my new favorite:

4 Layer Dessert

What you need:

1 cup flour
1/2 cup finely chopped slivered almonds
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) of butter or margarine melted
1 pkg (8oz) Philadelphia Fat Free Cream Cheese, softened
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 cups thawed Cool Whip sugar free whipped topping
2 cups cold fat free milk
1 package of Jello Fat Free Instant Pudding any flavor (I used chocolate)

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Mix flour, nuts and margarine; press onto bottom of 13x9 inch pan. Bake 15 minutes or until lightly browned. Let cool.

Beat cream cheese and sugar with a mixer until well blended. Stir in 1 cup of cool whip; spread over crust.
Beat milk and pudding mixes with whisk for 2 minutes; spread over cream cheese layer. Top with remaining Cool Whip. Refrigerate for several hours.

Note: I let the pudding stand for a couple of minutes to thicken and then spread it on the cream cheese layer.

and TADA....................

Hope you all enjoy your Wednesday!!

I Cannot Wait!

This movie is going to ROCK!



I used to watch Land of the Lost when I was a kid! (the TV series that came out in 1991, not the original from 74'.) I loved the show then and I know I am going to love the movie now! Plus Will Farrell is one of my favorites and so is Danny McBride, I just think they are both hilarious. I look forward to seeing this movie!

Also!!! I am a GINORMOUS mob movie, mob show, gal! I love anything mob. And for some odd reason I've NEVER watched an episode of Sopranos. But that changed last night! We watched the first two episodes of Sopranos and I can't wait to watch more. One of our friends let us borrow the first THREE seasons of the show and I so look forward to taking an entire day to watch as many episodes as we can!

Jon is taking off Wednesday through Sunday in celebration of our one year anniversary on Sunday! I look forward to some quality time with my husband!!

Hope you all have a great Tuesday. I'm off for my 6 miler in the park.

Our Weekly Weekend Update

Okay, can someone please tell my why weekends seem to zoom by? I guess it's true, time flies when you're having fun!

Saturday Jon and I woke up early and sat outside on the patio for hours drinking our coffee and chatting about everything under the moon. I cherish those mornings.

After taking our time getting ready, I cut Jon's hair and trimmed his beard, and then we headed out for some errand running. We've been wanting to put a water proof stain on our patio furniture so we stopped by a hardware store to grab some stain and sand paper. We then headed back home to get to work. I'm so glad we stained the furniture because it looks so much better. Now, hopefully we won't have cup rings all over our table!

We grabbed some lunch on the patio and enjoyed the weather. For a little dessert, I made us fruit smoothies with organic frozen yogurt and a scoop of protein powder. It was amazing, it tasted fruity and chocolaty, two of my favorite things! (That was before Jon told me protein powder was used as a weight gainer!) Thanks Jonny, that's the last thing I need ;) But it was still so darn good.

Later that evening we met up with some of our friends that Jon works with at an Italian restaurant. We were celebrating a birthday and also got to see our friends brand new baby. Addison is her name and she's only a little over a month old, she is absolutely precious! I got to hold her and she was just a teeny tiny angel! I took pictures but they turned out terribly blurry. It was a great time catching up with everyone, and of course eating some yummy Italian food, and drinking great wine!

Sunday, Jon I slept in until 9:15! That's amazing for us. It was such a treat! We decided it was a good day to do some spring cleaning, so we grabbed a quick breakfast and got to work.

*We swept the patio and took a bunch of things down to the cellar.
*Did an incredible amount of laundry (where does it all come from???)

*Did loads of filing and organizing in our office.
*Hung Several new pictures on our walls.
*Ate panini's and drank a beer (my favorite part of the cleaning process!)

*Jon cleaned the kitchen thoroughly (he rocks!)
*I cleaned the "salon" and organized it.
*Did all of our recycling and took our glass to the recycling bin
*Organized the cellar and got rid of several old boxes.
*Did more laundry and picked up the bathroom.

There's still so much that needs to be done, but I feel like we did pretty well getting things organized, finally!

We did the Shred! It kicked both of our butts!
Then we made a nice dinner, relaxed on the couch with a nice bottle of wine and watched I Heart Huckabees. Not to bad of a weekend if you ask me.

How about you guys??? How was your weekend?

Today I'm still getting laundry under control! It seems like it is a never ending battle ;)
Hope you all had a great weekend!